Bisimulations for Delimited-Control Operators

We present a comprehensive study of the behavioral theory of an untyped $\lambda$-calculus extended with the delimited-control operators shift and reset. To that end, we define a contextual equivalence for this calculus, that we then aim to characterize with coinductively defined relations, called bisimilarities. We consider different styles of bisimilarities (namely applicative, normal-form, and environmental) within a unifying framework, and we give several examples to illustrate their respective strengths and weaknesses. We also discuss how to extend this work to other delimited-control operators

An Operational Foundation for Delimited Continuations in the CPS Hierarchy

We present an abstract machine and a reduction semantics for the lambda-calculus extended with control operators that give access to delimited continuations in the CPS hierarchy. The abstract machine is derived from an evaluator in continuation-passing style (CPS); the reduction semantics (i.e., a small-step operational semantics with an explicit representation of evaluation contexts) is constructed from the abstract machine; and the control operators are the shift and reset family. At level n of the CPS hierarchy, programs can use the control operators shift_i and reset_i for

An Operational Foundation for Delimited Continuations

We derive an abstract machine that corresponds to a definitional interpreter for the control operators shift and reset. Based on this abstract machine, we construct a syntactic theory of delimited continuations. Both the derivation and the construction scale to the family of control operators shift_n and reset_n. The definitional interpreter for shift_n and reset_n has n + 1 layers of continuations, the corresponding abstract machine has n + 1 layers of control stacks, and the corresponding syntactic theory has n + 1 layers of evaluation contexts.See also BRICS-RS-05-24

A Functional Abstraction of Typed Invocation Contexts

In their paper "A Functional Abstraction of Typed Contexts", Danvy and Filinski show how to derive a monomorphic type system of the shift and reset operators from a CPS semantics. In this paper, we show how this method scales to Felleisen's control and prompt operators. Compared to shift and reset, control and prompt exhibit a more dynamic behavior, in that they can manipulate a trail of contexts surrounding the invocation of previously captured continuations. Our key observation is that, by adopting a functional representation of trails in the CPS semantics, we can derive a type system that encodes all and only constraints imposed by the CPS semantics

A modular structural operational semantics for delimited continuations

It has been an open question as to whether the Modular Structural Operational Semantics framework can express the dynamic semantics of call/cc. This paper shows that it can, and furthermore, demonstrates that it can express the more general delimited control operators control and shift

A Type-Theoretic Foundation of Delimited Continuations

International audienceThere is a correspondence between classical logic and programming language calculi with first-class continuations. With the addition of control delimiters, the continuations become composable and the calculi become more expressive. We present a fine-grained analysis of control delimiters and formalise that their addition corresponds to the addition of a single dynamically-scoped variable modelling the special top-level continuation. From a type perspective, the dynamically-scoped variable requires effect annotations. In the presence of control, the dynamically-scoped variable can be interpreted in a purely functional way by applying a store-passing style. At the type level, the effect annotations are mapped within standard classical logic extended with the dual of implication, namely subtraction. A continuation-passing-style transformation of lambda-calculus with control and subtraction is defined. Combining the translations provides a decomposition of standard CPS transformations for delimited continuations. Incidentally, we also give a direct normalisation proof of the simply-typed lambda-calculus with control and subtraction

From delimited CPS to polarisation

Appeared in the author's PhD thesis (Chapter III) along with more details. See (and cite) Guillaume Munch-Maccagnoni, Syntax and Models of a non-Associative Composition of Programs and Proofs, Université Paris-Diderot - Paris VII, 2013, .The understanding of continuation-passing style (CPS) translations, an historical source of denotational semantics for programming languages, benefits from notions brought by linear logic, such as focalisation, polarities and the involutive negation. Here we aim to show how linear logic helps as well when continuations are delimited, i.e. return and can be composed, in the sense of Danvy and Filinski. First we provide a polarised calculus with delimited control (first-class delimited continuations) which is, at the level of computation, a variant of Girard's polarised classical logic LC. It contains variants of delimited control calculi which spawned as answers to the question "what order of evaluation can we consider with delimited control?". Thus our polarised calculus is one answer which is unifying to some degree. Subsequently we decompose the calculus through polarised linear logic. The only difference with non-delimited continuations is the use of specific exponentials, that account for the specific semantics of the target of delimited CPS translation, as well as annotations of type-and-effect systems. As a by-product, we obtain an explanation of CPS translations through a factoring, each step of which accounts for distinct phenomena of CPS translations. Although the factoring also holds for non-delimited CPS translations, it did not appear in its entirety before